My healing from attachment trauma, childhood wounds, and codependency has been a journey of learning to receive—of recognizing where I once blocked myself by clinging to resentment when expectations went unmet.
The Power of Birthday Rituals : Healing, Reparenting, and Self-Acceptance
Birthdays as Portals for Healing and Growth
Birthdays have a way of amplifying expectations—the very root of unhappiness—but they also open powerful doors for healing and transformation. Your solar return isn’t just a day; it’s a massive energy portal, inviting you into rituals you can either embrace or resist. You can step through intentionally, working with its energy, or turn away and let the universe steer the course for you. Either way, life will continue offering you moments to shift, evolve, and realign with your path. 🌀🎉
As my birthday month unfolded, so did a series of catalysts rising to the surface. My 37th brought many, but one in particular stood out—a ritual I had the chance to reclaim and rediscover: the birthday cake. 🕯️
👑 This portal asked me to examine my expectations, challenge my assumptions, and truly be with my emotions. It became an exercise in self-reparenting, a practice in both giving and receiving. Through honoring this ritual, I unearthed its deeper spiritual significance and the needs it meets for me. At the same time, I softened—choosing to remain open to what life had to offer rather than shutting down in disappointment.
Healing Involves Holding Space for Nuances and Multiple Perspectives
Do you know what I mean?
For me, reparenting has meant validating my feelings of resentment while also preventing myself from spiraling into self-destruction. As a child, once resentment took hold, I couldn’t just “change my mood”—it would consume me, overshadowing everything good in my world. Now, before you assume I’m about to preach toxic positivity, stay with me.
Genuine gratitude coexists with life’s difficulties. Practicing gratitude as a way to override pain is nothing more than spiritual bypassing. You can be deeply upset—about illness, loss, or disappointment—while also feeling grateful for small moments of beauty, connection, or presence. True healing isn’t about canceling out the negative but about embracing nuance, something many struggle with in today’s polarized world.
So how do you do it?
Some parts of yourself simply won’t be forced out of negativity—and trying to push them only creates more resistance. True healing comes from allowing those parts to feel what they need to feel. You must “feel it to heal it.” At the same time, let other parts of you experience joy. Give yourself permission to hold both truths at once.
Your Are Multidimensional
Your psyche is made up of multiple perspectives, each attached to different beliefs, emotions, and energies. You can either identify with them as fixed reality, or you can practice non-attachment, expanding your ability to hold space for nuance.
Instead of clinging to a single perspective as the truth, acknowledge that each has its own validity. Every part of you has its reasons for feeling the way it does. Healing is about opening not just your mind but your body to this understanding—somatically, not just intellectually.
Yes, as humans, we contain multitudes! Healing is about expanding your capacity to hold space for all of them. It’s an ongoing process, and it is your birthright. 🌊
Reparenting is about nurturing the parts of us that resist receiving—whether love, joy, or support—because of past wounds. With time, I’ve learned not to “cut off my nose to spite my face,” not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I allow myself to feel it all—the grief and the gratitude, the pain and the pleasure.
The part of me committed to reparenting holds space for all my emotions as I navigate resentment. I turn to my Integrated Parent, my Higher Self, and the Divine before seeking external validation. At 37, I talk to God in ways my 27-year-old self would have found unthinkable. And yet, I keep evolving. 📝
The Expectations We Attach to Birthdays
🎉 On New Year’s, I set a conscious intention: to cultivate more inner union than ever before. That intention ripened as I journeyed through the birthday portal, surrendering to catalysts, my feelings, and the process of reparenting. And in doing so, I uncovered just how significant the ritual of birthday cake is to me.
Given the circumstances, no one was going to gift me one. But I also wasn’t about to take the “mature” route of simply asking for it. I couldn’t force myself to. Yet, in other parts of the ritual, I embodied courage and assertiveness. Baby steps—sometimes, that’s the real work.
I wrestled with awkwardness, longing for someone attuned enough to just know what I needed. I toyed with the idea of emphasizing to my housemates and friends how much receiving a cake meant to me. Yes, I knew they couldn’t mind-read. And yes, I knew expecting them to was a guaranteed way to end up disappointed. But this? This request felt too raw, too vulnerable to voice. The cringe of asking blocked me completely. And of course, after the ritual was over, my brain delighted in running through how I could have communicated my need.
“Hey, would you be up for getting me a cake, candles, and singing to me? It’s really important to me.”
“Hey, my birthday’s coming up, and it would mean a lot if you got me a cake and celebrated with me.”
Etc. etc. 😖🤮☹️😮💨🧘♀️🤦♀️🧘♀️
Even after healing my attachment style to an incredible degree, these “small” moments—these catalysts—still bring up self-doubt. But the moment I recognize that negativity creeping in, I reclaim my role as a Conscious Creator and integrate the lesson.
It’s easy to read scripts on how to communicate your needs. It’s much harder to live them. To apply them means standing in the trenches of childhood wounds and navigating your way into adulthood. Sometimes, it requires momentarily setting aside emotions while communicating with people who may not have the capacity to hold space for them—then, later, retreating to process those feelings in a safe, self-soothing environment. This isn’t bottling things up; it’s discernment. It’s knowing who to bring your vulnerability to. (I highly recommend my video Take it to THE RIGHT DOOR | empaths, codependents, fearful avoidant attachment for more on this.
Healing attachment wounds means developing ways to meet your own needs when others won’t—and recognizing who is actually capable of meeting you halfway. You don’t have to keep hungering for breadcrumbs. You get to set the table for yourself.
Hyper-Independence: A Survival Strategy That Works Against Us When We Want to Grow
One challenge I continually check in with myself on is whether I’m truly standing in my power or just operating from hyper-independence.
Hyper-independence is often praised, especially in American culture, but at its core, it’s a survival strategy—one developed in childhood to reject others before they can reject us. When our needs weren’t met, we learned to meet them ourselves. It worked—until it didn’t.
The breaking points come in adulthood: when we burn ourselves out trying to prove our worth through relentless work, when we sabotage our ability to scale a business because we believe we must do everything alone, when we struggle to ask for help despite drowning in exhaustion. Sometimes, the cost is even higher—illness, disconnection, a slow erosion of joy.
This is a theme I’ll return to often, but for now, I want to emphasize the importance of recognizing when we’re acting from hyper-independence. Because I certainly had to.
The Power of Rituals in Self-Reparenting
And so, I baked my own cake. And I gathered others to come sing to me. It felt pathetic—but I did it anyway.
Four people stood around me, singing, unaware of how much I needed that moment. I soaked it in. I’d never done anything like this before. I’ve had birthdays where I was given a cake, and plenty where I bought a slice for myself, sang alone, and made a wish. But this was something else.
It was never about the cake. Just like it’s never about the unwashed dishes that make someone snap. Beneath every eruption is a deeper need. So what was I really craving?
Appreciation
Support
Celebration of life
Novelty
Joy
It’s not my first rodeo asking people who aren’t attuned to my needs to meet them. But even the most securely attached friends, family, and lovers miss the mark sometimes. We are human, prone to mistakes. It’s a risk to let others in, but if we truly want to grow in Right Relationship, we take that risk—with those who want to meet us, who love to. That is the easier path to healing, and why I recommend starting there.
The next level? Re-evaluating other connections. Sometimes, this means letting go of relationships that no longer align. Sometimes, it means setting them on the back burner and prioritizing reciprocal ones. When someone has already shown they aren’t receptive, I shift how I communicate my needs—and my boundaries.
I no longer engage in romantic relationships that lack reciprocity, but I still notice other connections in my life that do. And I choose these wisely. Some, I release without hesitation. Others, I keep—not out of attachment, but as part of my own catalyst integration.
Take my relationship with my father. I have something of a connection with him. What does it consist of? Constantly dropping expectations and resentments and choosing true, unconditional love. I believe I chose him as my father in this lifetime to understand what true love is.
True love is unconditional. But that doesn’t mean tolerating abuse. If a non-reciprocal relationship is actively hurting you, you are out of alignment with self-love. Healing is nuanced, and it’s up to you to curate your own life.
The practice of consciously using non-reciprocal relationships for catalyst integration isn’t for everyone. But for those walking the path of spiritual evolution, it’s an option. One that requires deep discernment.
Hyper-Independence vs. Allowing Support
For those of us who grew up with unmet needs, openly expressing what we want can feel unnatural. We either become avoidant, pushing people away, or clingy, using manipulation to get our needs met. Some of us oscillate between the two. Hyper-independence? That’s my ego’s preference. It’s far less painful than asking for something and reliving rejection.
“Getting your needs met” felt foreign when I first started healing my attachment style. The catalysts for growth never seem to end, and I no longer expect them to. Instead, I surrender—again and again—into Love and Forgiveness.
Two quotes often guide me:
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” —Mark Twain
This bittersweet truth is the feeling of expansion. We cannot grow without forgiveness.
And another:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” —Rumi
So, I return to the shadow work. Whenever a trigger arises, I ask myself: Where am I doing this in relationship to myself?
As I roamed the grocery aisles, I observed my thoughts.
“Do you really need a cake?” The Killjoy in me questioned.
Navigating Disappointment and Finding Joy
The Killjoy is blocked from pleasure, play, and intuition. It belittles everything from solo dates to self-touch to baking a cake for myself. It identifies with negative, low self-worth stories. It tries to avoid pain. If I let it take the reins, I would’ve avoided making myself the cake. “I’ll make it another time” was a thought that came up when something curious happened next…
I forgot to buy the Bundt pan and had to go back to the grocery store for it a second time! Sometimes forgetfulness is a form of sabotage we overlook until we commit to change. We blame it on ADHD, saying, Oh, that’s just me, I can’t function well. But let’s be honest—sometimes, we’re just resisting responsibility. And responsibility? It’s not a burden. It’s a creative force. You can’t even make a party without taking it.
In the past I would have been fussy about not wanting to go back. I would have judged myself for forgetting the pan and made that into something. Instead, I found it interesting to become conscious of a tiny unconscious choice of potential sabotage. I know better now and am committed to repatterning. I GET TO reparent myself!
So, I chose to follow a different counsel within.
“We’re going to have to make our own cake. You can be a poopy pants about it and do it with me or not. Either way we’re making one. Hey, we get to try baking this one with einkorn flour.”
The Integrated Parent in me turned down aisle 4 and grabbed a 3 and a 7 candle, no problem. I felt delight rush up inside me. The audacity! Should I feel lame for orchestrating this myself?
The wounded feminine in me longed for others to lead & deliver this birthday ritual. But the healed, divine feminine is a leader of ritual. She sets the standards. She understands that transformation isn’t something you think your way into. You live into it.
And so, I did.
Magnifying Your Manifestation In Your Solar Return Portal
“Okay, now you guys have to sing to me!”
It was odd to gather four people myself and tell them to do this. But they were joyful to. And that mattered.
Because did you realize that when people celebrate you positively as you are making wishes, it magnifies your manifestation even more?
Wow, I must say—I’ve never rattled off wishes so easily. I’m getting real good at visualizing while feeling!
The ritual of getting sung to and blowing out candles with your breath (life force) while making heartfelt wishes (intentions with feelings) on your day of solar return is significant. And like I said, it’s magnified when others join in. A human vortex of energy is formed through multiple people’s intentions, positive feelings and presence. It’s why prayer works.
A few hours later, I realized not only the importance of this magik, but that I’d met myself through another layer of wounds. I reparented myself. I met myself where I was—unwilling to communicate a certain need to others out of fear of feeling pathetic, but showing up for myself regardless, as best I could.
Worthiness of Celebration
Was baking myself my own cake an act of hyper independence?
No—it was an act of self-love and reparenting. Hyper-independence stems from fear and avoidance, from believing that you must do everything yourself because no one else will. But what I did wasn’t about rejection or distrust—it was about honoring my own needs, regardless of whether others recognized them.
I didn’t bake the cake out of resentment or a refusal to let others in. I did it as a way to show up for myself, to acknowledge my own worthiness of celebration. Furthermore, I invited others into celebration. That’s the key difference. Hyper-independence isolates, whereas self-reparenting nurtures. The fact that I invited others to sing to me—allowing myself to receive even in a small way—proves that I was practicing balance, not just self-reliance.
If anything, this experience helped me redefine the line between self-sufficiency and allowing support. Maybe it started as a test of hyper-independence, but it transformed into something deeper: a reclamation of joy, ritual, and self-honoring!
There are times when it is our job to give to ourself first. To deeply discover a need we overlooked or reduced the importance of and neglected, and to begin setting a standard of it for ourselves. Reclaiming rituals and customizing them is also life changing.
Sometimes it is only after I show up unconditionally for myself that I set a new standard that for others to show up for me in the same fashion.
How to Honor Your Needs Without Guilt
Would it have been nice for someone to mind read my longing and make me a cake? Oh sure! But that wasn’t happening. Instead, I was reminded: I am provided for by the Universe. There was a lesson in all of this. A test, even. And I passed—because I kept showing up.
The Toughened Part of me tried to dismiss my longing. The hypersensitive part felt like a neglected child. Now was the time for the Integrated Parent in me to show up unconditionally, regardless of whether that would change the Wounded Child’s outlook.
Transforming Limiting Beliefs Triggered By Assumptions
Assumptions aren’t always correct, despite us often being convinced they are. When I began healing my attachment style it was honestly heartbreaking to discover how often my assumptions weren’t true. I had countless epiphanies where I saw how clinging to assumptions robbed me of my happiness and dysregulated my nervous system.
Part of the work of Integrated Attachment Theory includes isolating subconscious core beliefs we have in response to a situation and working to equilibrate them by finding opposing pieces of evidence. When we do this, we create emotional relief and the repetition of doing so when triggered has the power to actually reprogram beliefs over time. The key to this is having a strong commitment. You view triggers as offering information and opportunities to become more whole.
Though, my assumption that I wouldn’t receive a cake turned out to be correct, did it mean I am not loved?
It is important to see what meaning we are giving to situations and uncover the limiting beliefs that are triggering us.
What did I make the triggering situation mean?
For me, my inner child believed “I am not important and no one cares enough about me. I am unloved.” From those beliefs sprang all kinds of negative stories like, “People only care about themselves.” I began imagining myself isolating and ruminating in my own shit.
Along with the negative belief came negative emotions like resentment, sadness, and anger. Grief too emerged as I thought of the best cakes I ever had, baked my holistic great auntie Lil who passed on, and how much I miss her.
Guilt also came up as my Spiritual Ego judged me as immature for placing expectations on others as though “the world revolves around me.”
Equilibrating Subconscious Core Beliefs
Now that I discovered the underlying beliefs and met my many feelings, I investigated what meaning I was giving the situation, and what I feared could happen.
“No one cares. I am not important to the people I am in connection to where I live now. Others are selfish. I am selfish.”
What negative thing was I afraid would take place?
I was afraid that if I kept allowing resentment to overtake me I’d sabotage everything. Another fear was that it would be true that others don’t really care about me, don’t love me.
I could convince myself to believe these things, or, I could equilibrate by considering a few things.
What could this situation of no one giving me a cake be about other than my assumptions?
Others were preoccupied with a festival that was going on. One person doesn’t celebrate their own birthday, so can I really expect them to make mine important when they don’t make their own important? No one knows a cake is so important to me because they aren’t cake people. They may be afraid or unsure what cake to give me because I avoid processed food.
Finding Proof That Opposes Negative Beliefs
Where is the opposite of the belief that I am unloved and unimportant true?
Well…
A lot of people sent me beautiful Happy Birthday messages. My brother, who is one of my housemates, gave me a beautiful birthday gift, a prismatic, hanging butterfly in pink and green, my favorite color combo. I also received wonderful, thoughtful gifts from some of my submissives. God sent me good business this month, with some great clients new and old. He showed me I am important enough to run my business and serve others. My body supports my every move. I listened to a meditation with the frequency of love in it. My father sent me a birthday gift, when I never expect anything from him anymore. My brother also bought me a ticket to a show that we went to the night before. He did show he loved me and I am important. Should I really cling to what he didn’t do?
It is easy to get tripped up fixating on the negative and discount the positives. Even as I write this blog I feel my heart open even more to the humanness in all this.
Another part of the process included reflecting on where I AM loved and important in the different areas of my life.
It is so, SO important to find supporting evidence that opposing the negative interpretations we have.
The Energetic Significance of Birthday Celebrations
It was an interesting birthday. The day of and the day after were cloudy and then rainy. My moontime also began, shifting my energy more inward.
I recounted how I received things I didn’t expect to receive and what this all meant. My brother gave me TWO gifts, yet I was fixated on the cake situation. Our relationship is made up of a lot of catalyst integration. A few years ago, he surprised me with an amazing birthday cake. But I never received that again. My ego latched onto that experience, creating an expectation. Meanwhile, I never expected a gift from him—but that’s exactly what he gave me at midnight, my birth time, before the cake ritual.
People give and love in their own language. When we get so caught up in personalizing where they fall short, we block out the blessings in our midst. This painful revelation is one of the biggest blessings of healing my attachment style. In the past, I might have turned so inward I’d have avoided everyone all weekend and felt sour. Now, I just feel it all. I give myself permission to be upset and to also have genuine gratitude. The two do not cancel each other out, nor are they a concoction for toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing my way through life.
Expectations are not reality. Clinging to them makes us suffer. But holding space for our inner child’s pain? That’s liberation. So is making a wish while blowing out your candles!
Your Invitation to Celebrate Your Life—Unconditionally
In the past, I would have judged myself for having expectations to begin with. This time, I saw my humanness. I accepted myself for being sensitive, validated my feelings, and nursed my wounds. I was one part poopy pants, another part adult woman appreciating herself as she is.
This is how we love ourselves through human imperfection. We own up to our humanness. We feel to heal. The feeling will come back again at some point until you hold space for it fully.
And so, I say to you:
If you’re feeling weird about meeting your own needs, do it anyway. Keep a diary. Celebrate your life through the birthday cake ritual, even if part of you is in the dumps. That part will become receptive to your reparenting the more you show it unconditional love and support. And you will find the wholeness you are dreaming of.
With Love,
Priestess Juniper Moriah
